#but i think tjats the big difference between 1 & 2

[witchblade]

like having your sequel villain be the functional opposite of the first game (both of them) is like. i won't say a no brainer but it works for obvious reasons. but sofia lamb specifically always came off to me as sooooo character-first like someone had something very personal they wanted to get off their chest

[raviposting]

Okay so I’ve seen a lot of conflicting responses to Buddie this episode, from it being clear to people that they’re getting together, to thinking the writers have unintentionally messed things up to thinking it’s purely queerbait.

And I get the different responses, I do - tbh I’m somehow in two camps, where I simultaneously believe it’s a slowburn but I also think it’s bait. And those are two very different opinions to have and it got me thinking about why we have these different responses as fans to the possibility of a queer ship (namely two men who would presumably be bi/pan) being canon. 

While people talk about how it’s just people wanting two characters to kiss or entitled fans - sure, that’s existent in every fandom, but I think there’s also a very real fear from queer fans who don’t want to get their hopes up and I d on’t love how the conversation has shifted to calling queer fans stupid for having hope, so I kind of wanted to break it down into 3 aspects that I’ve noticed: 

How writers portray bi characters and why that makes fans hesitant to have hope

What queerbait actually means as a concept

How much “slowburn” has changed in procedurals

1. How writers portray bi characters

Something I’ve thought about a lot are the bi characters I’ve seen on TV - Darryl (CEG), Sara Lance (Arrow), Lucifer (Lucifer), just to name a few. These are great characters imo and I think you’d have a fun time watching but a thing to note is that all these characters were established as bi within the first season of their respective shows and they all fairly quickly fell into a clear romantic ship as well (with the exception of Sara as she spanned multiple shows). It may have taken time for them to say the word bisexual, but it was still clear these characters were queer fairly quickly on. You could maybe argue that Lucifer was a slowburn, but then (while it does not take away from him being bi/pan so do not use this as an excuse to be shitty about him) it’s a m/f ship which is still not the point of my post, to find a m/m or f/f ship that has that same treatment.

Some writers have done it - like for Valencia in CEG, or Petra in JTV - when they saw that fans read them this way, but trying to find those characters were few and far between, and when I looked at popular queerbait ships (whether or not they actually are queerbait) it’s usually ships where the characters are largely viewed as bisexual. A lot of times this also comes with pushback from both straight and to be frank, other queer fans as well. Straight fans don’t always see the signs that queer fans do, so to them a queer character who hasn’t been explicitly clear from the start comes out of nowhere. And what I’ve seen from certain queer fans are concerns that people aren’t appreciating the canon queer characters in a show - and I think there is a conversation to be had about that, but I don’t think the response should also be about then demanding less representation for people either. 

If we go back to 911, people talk a lot about how it has canon queer characters, which it definitely does - Michael, Hen, Josh, Karen, and David are all canonically gay/lesbian and that’s awesome, and we absolutely should talk about fans (white fans in particular) ignoring these characters. It also does not change the fact that none of these characters are bisexual and that is the representation people are looking for. Both of these things are true - these characters are often under appreciated in canon AND people deserve bisexual representation. They don’t contradict each other and to act like one negates the other does a huge disservice.

And even if a character was made bisexual in the canon text we don’t get that slowburn. This may be true for things like Leverage, or LOK, but there’s also a real fact of censorship that affected these shows and the fact that general audiences may not understand the queer text tjat the writers intended. It doesn’t make the writing any less wonderful or the ships any less poignant or beautiful or important, and there’s ofc shows like She Ra that made this more obvious (or the.....mess that was Supernatural that made it. Half true?) but these are still real things that should be acknowledged on why people are so hesitant to call it slowburn - because it’s something most queer fans haven’t SEEN DONE, because m/f ships will get that care for slowburn when it’s done but it’s not done for m/m or f/f ships in that same capacity.

2. What queerbait is

This one’s fun because I don’t think many people understand what it is, but queerbait is very dependent on the intentions of the writers/creators/etc. - which tbh can be hard to gauge, because a genuine intention that ended up not happening or someone baiting fans or someone trying to support all ships and not be rude all have very different intentions but to a fan who only sees bits and pieces of this person on social media, it can be hard to gauge.

Honestly with how much the 4th wall gets broken because of social media now I’d personally say we’ve probably moved into a different definition of queerbait - unintentional vs intentional - because we’re at a point where a show knows what ships are popular and at what level of excitement fans are for it - but that being said, there’s still a clear spectrum of intent. And imo? I don’t think 911 has that intent of queerbait - whether it’s a slowburn or they have a different vision for buddie that I (probably) won’t agree with remains to be seen, but this show usually treats its storylines with care. Are they perfect at it? No, definitely not, I definitely think that they’ve dropped the ball a few times (especially with just how many characters they have lmao), but they also clearly do their storylines with earnest and with genuine care for these characters.

Is 911 getting them together? I want to say yes. I don’t think this was always the plan, just something that they decided along the way, but I also don’t think that changes anything about the ship. A lot of people point to Tim Minear being vague about the ship, or the actors and their interpretations, but 1. We have no idea what they’ve been told about Buddie moving forward and 2. No show runner is going to spoil their show that much. 911 may be keeping quiet because they have a different plan for buddie, sure, but also maybe because they’re still figuring out how exactly they want to do this and/or they want to make this slowburn and don’t want to give it away.

3. Slowburn in procedurals

I feel like this is something that procedurals have started shying away from, but slowburns used to be very common - Bones, Castle, their ships didn’t get together for literal years, but that’s just not something that many shows do nowadays, even for m/f ships. Even things like Deckerstar will have the characters get together after ~3 seasons and explore the relationship onwards, whereas a few years ago, y ou’d pr obably be watching a sh ow and it’d take them 7 seasons to get together. My assumption for this is that shows are afraid  of getting canceled, but there’s been a pretty big shift in getting a couple together after say, 6 seasons to now getting them together about halfway through the show. I don’t think either one is bad or good - in good writers’ hands, either can be amazing - but that shift has made it so that a lot of younger fans in particular, I think, don’t fully recognize slowburn when they see it.

911 as a show tends to run pretty fast - it kind of has to with its depth of characters they have - but when they do have slower running storylines they really do make use of that as well. Bobby’s addiction is something that’s always going to be present in his character, May’s suicide attempt was brought up again front and center after 3 seasons, even Chim’s dynamic with the Lees was brought up again and it was reinforced again that they’re his family. There are certain storylines that have to be continuous and aren’t a one and done type of thing, and that includes Buck and Eddie, especially if you want to establish them as queer to a general audience who doesn’t think about these things.

And honestly, despite my fears, I think they are laying groundwork there. We have Buck learning to be more confident in his relationships, we have Eddie ready to date and learning to follow his own heart, we have Buck and Eddie both establishing that Buck is family and will always be there for Christopher. These are pretty big steps to do for a ship and we’ll obviously have to see how the show goes forward but they’ve already insinuated Eddie and Ana are breaking up, I’m sure Taylor and Buck may last a season and be over, but we do have to see what this next season brings. Do I think they’d say this? No, definitely not.

tl;dr: 

911 is a show with good viewership, but there’s always a possibility they can’t continue with their season and then their promises would feel like a lie. Or they may still be hammering out the details as this season hasn’t been written. Or they may just simply not want to spoil their show,  or they don’t want people criticizing a story before it’s finished, all of these could be reasons. The showrunners, writers, actors, ultimately they owe nothing to us as a fandom to potentially spoil their series, or do something, change it or their schedule for it, and get accused of bait. 

But it also doesn’t change why fans are wary of this storyline either, and I wish people would have more nuance and compassion for fans who are worried about queerbait (whether they think it’s not queerbait and dislike people worrying about it or if they do and are calling people idiots for believing it). There’s a lot of reasons why fans are wary and don’t want to have hope, and it’s not necessarily about 911 specifically as it is a pattern of writing seen in other pieces that have fans worried. These things can all coexist and I wish we as fandom in general could acknowledge that, because pretending that they don’t and criticizing each other/people’s intentions or knowledge when they have certain expectations also doesn’t do much to help.

[djs-sideblog-for-pog-trains]

I have no idea how many people in this fandom are musical and then are familiar with brass bands (a very english music ensemble) but like

I keep picturing a Sodor Brass Band, man. In a human/human-ish au i keep thinkjng about it man. Its like 1am and i should sleep but

Actually,, gonna ramble about it

So a brass band is different from other music groups because it uses instruments from only the brass family (and doesnt have trumpets or french horns, thats orchestras or concert bands/military bands)

And i hope u know anything abt brass bands bc otherwise tbis might be unjntelligable but LMAO. If u want a reference, id look up Grimethorpe Collary Band, Black Dyke, Brighouse and Rastrick, or Corey. I cant remember their full titles but all those bands are or were the best band in the world at some poibt or other.

But yeah anyway on with the post. Let thr headcanons flow throu you.

And like. Ok. Edward has big 1st Baritone energy. Good baritone players are always in demand but hardly ever in spotlight, but their parts r also usually hard. 1st bari is also somwtimes required to play solos. Usually a quieter sort of person. Ans he seems the most like a bandie.

Gordon is principle solo cornet. (Cornet is like a trumpet but a little smaller, ans a more mellow sound due to the piping.. i wont ramble abt it). Violins of the brass band. He has the most solos and theyre all flashy and difficult but he knows what he's doing. Goddamn. Go king go.

Henry. Principle Eb Bass. This is the lead tuba player. In a brass band there are 2 kinds of tuba (Eb and Bb) and Eb is smaller, higher, and has harder parts. Very important and occasionally gets solos. Good tuba players always seem to be Units as well.

James. Oh im torn between soprano cornet and principle euphonium. On one hand, euphoniums are the showponies, have the hardest solos, biggest centre of attention. But also... soprano cornet. One of the best instruments in the whole group. Highest instrument, your band is not complete without one and by god you cant miss hearing it. It screams over top and is amazing. Very flashy.

Percy has big trombone energy, cant tell if 2nd or bass trombone. But also i am a bass trombonist so i diagnose him with bass bc hes my fav and i said so.

Thomas would be a tenor horn player i think. Not necessarily solo horn but a good player none the less. The tenor horns often have fiddly parts but are important to the overall texture - you can def tell if theyre missing. I think thomas has been trying to prove himself good enough to sit 1st horn for ages and now occasionally gets to play top seat every now and then.

Toby is the flugel player, i think. You only have 1 flugel ans it has the most beautiful sound. Partway between a cornet and a tenor horn, it shares the 'i have the tune all the time' charavteristic of a cornet and thr 'i have all the fiddly bits' of a tenor horn. One of the hardest parts but the most unique sound. One of the instruments that adds the most 'colour' to a band's sound (the other is the bass trombone lol)

Gotten this far and remembered abt duck and oliver uhhh

Duck is def a euphonium player. Absolutely. If james is also a eupho then they argue over solos and who gets to play them. Oliver i think is Bb bass. (The lowercase b is a flat. B flat.) That or a percussionist.

Emily would be a tenor horn or a backrow cornet (probably repiano cornet). Molly would be 3rd cornet.

Deisel has front row cornet energy, meaninf he'd probably sit in thr same row as/beside Gordon. Lady can also be front row cornet but on the opposite end. Wants everyone in her section to just stop fighting please for once.

Mavis would be 2nd baritone. Salty another Eb bass. Boco could be another tenor horn or maybe backrow cornet. I dont have enough trombones oh god

Problem is tjat james also has big 1st trombone energy. Also emily, actually.

Ooooo wait. Victor as 1st tromvone and Rosie as 2nd. A trombone section of Victor Rosie Percy would be lethal (affectionate).

And like surprisingly thats most of a band?? I think u generaly have like 30ish players. Got no percussionists but. Hmm. Myabe bill and ben and toad are percussionists. Cranky is the timpanist.

And im gonna leave it there bc its now almost 2am and i need to sleeppppp